Working tooth and nail to smother the Hun, and he in turn working might and main to smother us, was the order of the day continuously throughout the campaign on the Somme, and a few nights following the happening above, Dory and myself were on S.O.S. sentry.
About 3:00 o'clock A.M. the messages from Germany started coming and our replies were mailed back as fast as the postal authorities at the guns could handle the matter; in fact, throughout our campaign on the Somme we mailed our replies and our additional messages so rapidly and so effectively, that nine times out of ten Fritzie's working force was swamped.
On this A.M. his shells were gas which glazed the feed lamps and the sight of the lenses, as well as accumulating in the inside of the gun muzzle, making it necessary to swab out the muzzle of the gun before using, as otherwise it would rust badly, which would result in putting the gun out of commission in short order. The fire developed into a first-class artillery duel, our battery and nine others answering ten German batteries. The net result of the duel was two of Fritzie's guns put out of business.
Before long our lamps on the sandbags, by which we got our light to see to work the guns, were knocked off by an explosion and we were in darkness; following that, the springs in the buffer of my gun were broken, making it necessary to put it back in place by hand. Each time the gun is fired it recoils and is brought back to place by the hydraulic buffer containing the spring; but we had to perform this work in the darkness by hand. The coals of Hades were now coming in heavier each moment, because heavier caliber pieces had opened up on us, and we were getting the worst of it; our weightier sisters must take a hand at the game, and we kept up our end of the argument until this could be done.
It was Dory's duty to reload the gun and push it forward in place for position, each time yelling "Ready!" One time the gun was shoved into place and the man on the right,—Dory was on the left—gave the "Ready!" and I fired. The darkness was still thick and I could not see that Dory was pushing up on the gun with all his might, to bring it into place when I fired, and the recoil drove him back into the corner against a pile of ammunition, smashing his arm. We assisted him, and one of the fellows volunteered to go with him to the dressing station, but Dory was game to the core; he was one of the most happy-go-lucky boys I ever met. "Hell! I will make it myself. Stay here while the fun is on. I wish to God I could stay too!"
We renewed our duel, but the heavier caliber shells were commencing to tell; number 3 gun was struck and part of the crew wiped out. Our telephonist 'phoned headquarters for the weightier women to get busy, telling them of our plight, and inside six minutes the ladies of larger girth, the 9.02 howitzers, started debating the question with Fritzie so vigorously that inside of thirty minutes not a single reply was to be had from their guns.
"Stand down!"—and cleaning our guns, gun pits and carrying ammunition, busied us. In the midst of our work a dizziness seized my head, accompanied with a choking in the throat and lungs, and before I could cry out or warn my pals, I dropped. I had unconsciously imbibed the potion when I removed my mask to relight the feed lamps, and it is one of the peculiar effects of this dose that it is some time after its inhalation that the harmfulness becomes apparent;—so it was with me. I was lifted onto a stretcher and carried to the dressing station near what is known as the Sunken Road. The ground around the station was dotted with men suffering from attacks of a similar nature; there were 56 of us in all.
The doctor's examination was brief,—"Gas," and I was laid alongside my brothers in misery. We were ordered to keep absolutely quiet and on no account to leave our stretchers; but while lying there the unwelcome messages from the German guns began coming in our neighborhood; and the ever terrifying sound of their explosions brought the nerves of the men, already on edge, over the border line of reason, and a number of them struggled up from their cots and started running away, forgetting or ignoring the doctor's orders. The poor fellows paid dearly for it; some of them dropped in their tracks, dying, where they dropped; some died after they were brought back to the station, and some gave up the ghost when in England they lost the last remaining tissue of their lungs, due to the effect of their running. "I mustn't budge!" I kept repeating to myself, for my own nerves were at the jumping-off point and I thought the veins in my head would burst if I had to endure those explosion-roars another minute. Happily they ceased as suddenly as they began.
There is no kind of suffering endured in the battle front that has such a horror for the men as the gas; it is that fighting for breath that takes the life out of a fellow, and, God! how it chokes. Out of that bunch of 56 gassed men, only six came out whole.
The following week we were ordered to leave the Somme. Although I felt in the mood for sticking it as long as I had the strength to keep going, yet I must confess the order filled my soul with a gratitude that was unspeakable. I had been in the Somme campaign three months, and when our guns swept into position at Martinsaart, my weight was 171; when I left, I tipped the scales at 145. The men who had been with the guns there and who know what it is to work 24 hours in the day for many days in the week, rarely during the three months experiencing the refreshing rest of a consecutive two hours' sleep, and working like veritable demons during every waking moment, either at the guns or cleaning the ammunition, or carrying the ammunition into place,—they will understand what it means to lose 25 pounds in weight on the Somme.